Shit program synopses on Netflix and Amazon

[danny la rouge]

I think we already recommended that but it got ignored in favour of more complaining.

Hey! This bloke won’t complain!

 

[danny la rouge]

Or worse, trailers that are packed with spoilers

I hate that.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's Americans who do the subtitles for Netflix. Always transcribe 'arse' as 'ass' when doing sub-titles for British and Australian shows. It kills me every time.

I've seen heroine for heroin, variations in the spelling of names from one scene to the next, obscenities of translation that would drive maomao screaming in rage from the room, it's appalling

 

[Nanker Phelge]

It's Americans who do the subtitles for Netflix. Always transcribe 'arse' as 'ass' when doing sub-titles for British and Australian shows. It kills me every time.

Watching a doc yesterday and 'habitually' was worded as 'obituary' in the subs....shocking really. It was said by a real in-bred redneck murderer with less teeth than a new born baby, but it's still pretty shit if you need subs to actually understand what the fuck is being said....

 

[Nanker Phelge]

I bit of Netflix roulette can pay off.

Calibre was a real gem that I just chanced upon and took a punt.

There is a real Netflix Roulette https://reelgood.com/roulette/netflix

 

[Reno]

I wonder if it’s to do with that they have to crank out an enormous amount of subtitles in several languages.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

I wonder if it’s to do with that they have to crank out an enormous amount of subtitles in several languages.

Probably AI produced.

 

[Reno]

Probably AI produced.

The results would be a lot worse than they are.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

 

[Nanker Phelge]

This is pretty poor...

 

[Spymaster]

I wonder if it’s to do with that they have to crank out an enormous amount of subtitles in several languages.

It's what they do. It's their business. They should do it properly. Levis produce an enormous amount of jeans in many styles but that wouldn't be an excuse for them to leave the pockets off some of them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Writing good subtitles is an art form. You need to balance tone with trying too hard to mimic the vernacular (it jars when they try to transfer accents/argot). You've got to be clear without being overly grammatical, though - it also jars when the translation is inappropriately formal. And you've got to be aware of a viewer's reading capacity (which is slower than our hearing capacity) and where necessary leave stuff out or simplify to fit it in.

I would think, with the quantity now needed, either the experience isn't there or the pay is a bit shit and they have to churn it out quickly to make a living. I suspect the latter is the case.

 

[JimW]

I've done subtitling work and it is a lot more tricky than most of the other translation I do, because the language pair is quite wide apart but you have to fit the time and space you have on the screen so glossing stuff like you can do it literature usually won't fly.

 

[Spymaster]

Writing good subtitles is an art form. You need to balance tone with trying too hard to mimic the vernacular (it jars when they try to transfer accents/argot). You've got to be clear without being overly grammatical, though - it also jars when the translation is inappropriately formal. And you've got to be aware of a viewer's reading capacity (which is slower than our hearing capacity) and where necessary leave stuff out or simplify to fit it in.

I would think, with the quantity now needed, either the experience isn't there or the pay is a bit shit and they have to churn it out quickly to make a living. I suspect the latter is the case.

Again though, a lot of subtitling is very good so it can be done well. One would expect companies like Netflix and Amazon to put some serious resources into such an important aspect of their output.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

tbf I'm quite fond of certain kinds of bad subtitling. Hong Kong action films are normally good for a few laughs. 'I'll'!!

 

[Reno]

tbf I'm quite fond of certain kinds of bad subtitling. Hong Kong action films are normally good for a few laughs. 'I'll'!!

Subtitles won’t cut it, you need bad dubbing to fully appreciate those.

 

[Spymaster]

Subtitles won’t cut it, you need bad dubbing to fully appreciate those.

There's a film called Honour and Loyalty on Amazon. It's Italian, dubbed into German with bad English subtitles. Spectacular stuff.

 

[Reno]

View attachment 191261 This is pretty poor...

It’s poorly written but it does sum up the plot reasonably well, considering its a three hour film with about 20 important characters and a multitude of subplots. Incidentally, my favourite movie of the last decade.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

It’s poorly written but it does sum up the plot reasonably well, considering its a three hour film with about 20 important characters and a multitude of subplots. Incidentally, my favourite movie of the last decade.

That's why I was looking it up. I saw your other post.

 

[Reno]

There is no way you can sum up that movie in one sentence but they are obliged to try. Describing the event which kicks off the plot is all that can be done.